recount

I don't have the energy to adequately explain what has happened over the past few weeks. So I will briefly go over it.

I'm assuming Josh is no longer reading this blog. Josh, if you are reading it, I am assuming from now on that you are not.

I broke up with Josh because it wasn't working. Maybe it was never working, but my undelying love for him was so great that it was able to overcome the problems. Things just broke after prom. I couldn't do it anymore. I hit a weakness inside of me that I was no longer willing to overcome. I was no longer willing to be exhausted, pushed aside by my self-created obligations. I cried for a long time before I told Josh that I needed to take a break.

I started dating Patrick, and I was happier than I'd been in years. I felt free, liberated after years of imprisonment. It was hard because I felt terrible about Josh, but I felt like for the first time I was doing something for me, not Josh. That made me feel both terribly selfish and terribly in control.

One night I talked to Josh, and I was able to try to explain the way I had always felt, and I think that for the first time, he really understood. We agreed to just be friends. The days after that felt absolutely complete. I could finally talk to Josh.

However (and this I will probably never explain on this blog), my relationship with Pat ended up hurting Josh (understandably), so that the pain I guess overcame his friendship for me. Last night he got justifiably really upset, and he called me a whore and said I never cared about him, that I'm selfish, that I don't listen to him, etc. It really hurt, but I listened because I believed he needed to say it. He needed a purgation. He told me he wasn't going to talk to me for months, and I didn't want him to not be able to tell me these things before he left. So he said them, and I said sorry and good bye. I felt like my mom was talking to me. It made me feel the same way.

Today I have been oscillating between anger at Josh for calling me a whore and those other things, and great sadness because some part of me believes I am a whore, and all of me knows that he said it because I really, genuinely, truly hurt him. I hurt him very badly. And that thought is almost unbearable.

I cannot regret what happened/is happening with Pat, but I do regret the way I handled telling it to Josh.

I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone today. I can always talk to Erin, I guess, but I was with her and JoAnna this weekend when the news began to hit, and they were there for me (along with Pat) then when I first felt the pain. I knew Erin was sick of hearing about Josh, as he has been the standing topic of conversation since she met me. I couldn't exactly call Pat, as it was the middle of school. So I retreated within myself and struggled to reconcile the things that Josh said with my own emotions, feelings, and fears. I realized that I have to forgive Josh for calling me those things, and I have to forgive myself for hurting him. The only real solution to any sort of offense is always forgiveness. Animosity, anger, revenge... they get you nowhere. Josh hurt me. I feel that he completely abandoned me in a way that I would never abandon him. But he also feels hurt, and he was just telling me what he really thought. It was the truth, which I would value over a reconciling lie. I can find it within me to love Josh no matter what he does. I wish him the best. I can find it within myself to let go of my anger and to move on with my life.

It's not easy though.

I saw Pat after school, and he helped me. Ariel helped me, Rylee helped me, Erin helped me, Jen helped me. I will get through this. And I hope Josh will too.

last few days

How surreal it is, to walk these hallways for the last few days, to attend my last Friday of high school. Ever.

I started working last week at the snow cone shack. It's been fun. Some days are busy and full of flying syrup and ice. Others are slow and full of me cleaning and listening to the radio.

I haven't been sleeping much. I must confess that many days have been fueled by caffeine.

Today was the last day of seminary, and I slept through half of it.

I'm still happy. I feel more honest than I have felt in months. Years, maybe.

This is my last high school weekend.

I think I'm mostly excited. I still feel so much paranoia and anxiety, but I know there's a lot more out there than is contained in my high school hallways.

possibility

I think that maybe everything is going to be okay.

And that idea, that everything could be okay, after years of confusion, is so much that I can barely stand it.

I'm eighteen today.

*sigh*

I'm happy.

nothings

I haven't slept much this week.
I worked Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today at Tropical Sno.
I spend my tip money on energy drinks so I can stay awake at work.
I'm sick of school.
I stepped on a nail yesterday, and it didn't hurt even though it went in half a centimeter.
It hurt this morning.
Things always hurt in the morning.

And I can't be honest on here anymore. When did that happen?
When did I become capable of destroying people?
Why do I feel free?
I do feel happy. And hopeful.

I will have to start posting in cryptic poems since I can no longer say what's happening.

event horizon

At some point I realized I'd lost myself, and I wasn't happy.

I don't want that.

Nobody wants that.

to think about

Because the earth is round, if I stand one foot away from you, I am both one foot away and almost an entire world away.
Because space is a grid of geodesics, if I stand one inch away from you, I am both one inch away and an entire universe away.
Every time I step one inch closer, I also step one inch backwards.
Every time I get the closest to you one human being can possibly get, the universe in all of its immensity stretches between us, prying us apart.

why i have to stop searching and to learn to just be

CLOSER TO FINE- Indigo Girls

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.

We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

Cloture invoked on AP government

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No more government!

And the test went extremely well.

Sometimes I just don't feel like I'm cut out for this.

cool stuff

Today I have gone up and down and up and down, just like, as my Facebook status says, an undamped harmonic oscillator approaching resonance.

I was having a really crappy day involving AP English and government essays and molecular orbitals, and I thought I didn't get the writing award for that stuff I posted a while back, so I was rather grumpy when I went to Carroll to take my math semester (which I think went well, by the way).

After the semester, though, I found out I am a presidential scholar, meaning that my parents and I get an all expenses paid trip to Washington DC this June that is actually not during national debate! (It's the week right after.) Only 120 people got the academic presidentail scholar status, out of the whole nation. It was first based on SAT/ACT scores, and then I had to fill out this long annoying (but well worth it now) application in January. Now here I am! I get to see Washington DC for free, a city I've always wanted to visit! (And the fact that it's free makes me feel better about not going to Australia/New Zealand.)

After that I found out I actually did win the Harrison writing award, which is what I was applying for when I posted that story and those poems a while back. This means I get $250, which is the most money I've ever gotten for writing a few poems.

So that was happy, but I'm still stressed to the max and I feel like I'm drowning.

Today I was the uranium, plumped up and quivering, and life was the slowed neutron making it's way towards my center, preparing to commense a fission chain reaction that would destroy my universe.

I'm stressed and exhausted.